A DOWNSIZED ARMY LEANS ON RESERVES FOR DUTY IN BOSNIA

As the United States peacekeeping mission in Bosnia continues and eats away at military resources, the number of reservists and National Guard members who are finding themselves thrust into military life is growing sharply.

More Army reservists have been called up for active duty on the NATO-led force in Bosnia than were called during all of the Vietnam War. And for the first time in nearly three decades, a National Guard combat unit has been sent overseas.

The increasing resort to reservists stems in large measure from the Army's sharp reduction in personnel -- by 50 percent in just this decade. In 1990, as the cold war was winding down, there were about two million soldiers in the active-duty Army, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard combined. Today there are 993,000.

At the same time, the number of peacekeeping missions has increased, not only taxing the active-duty Army, but also drawing on many of the specialties now found predominantly in the Reserve, like civil affairs.

The use of reservists and National Guards to compensate for thinning active Army ranks raises questions of military readiness -- how adequately are part-time soldiers trained? And some members of Reserve and National Guard units wonder if the prospect of frequent mobilizations will discourage people from joining.

Some reservists in Bosnia have been being assigned tours of more than six months -- far longer than average -- and many say their families and employers do not understand the reasons for their absence.

Gen. Edward D. Baca, the head of the National Guard, says he doubts that the increased likelihood of being sent overseas will reduce Guard membership. And he insists that there is no shortage of reliable combat units. ''We've got a reserve of untapped ability before we'd ever feel a pinch,'' he said.

A Navy reservist now serving in Bosnia, Chief Petty Officer Milinda Jensen, 43, represents what the Pentagon hopes to find among the ranks of Americans in the Guard or Reserve who may now face lengthy missions overseas. While some of her colleagues resent having been called up, Chief Jensen says, ''I like the adventure.''

The other day in this town just south of Sarajevo, she straightened the shoulder holster strapped over her camouflage uniform. She tugged the 9-millimeter Beretta semi-automatic pistol hanging from one side, and on the other side pulled on the two ammunition clips, each holding 14 rounds. With that, she began to lead a classroom of 12- and 13-year-olds in boisterous games and then described a day in the life of an American family. As she showed the children photographs of her family on vacation, Marko Katic, 12, the son of a leader in the hard-line Bosnian Serb political party here in this town just south of Sarajevo, jumped to his feet. ''My dream has always been to have a vacation in Yellowstone Park in America,'' he said in halting but energetic English.

This was not Chief Jensen's regular duty in Bosnia. As a reservist, she was plucked from her civilian life as a public school teacher in Virginia and assigned to help run a NATO public information center in Bosnia. She was in the classroom here on her time off.

When Chief Jensen became one of the 3,500 reservists and members of the National Guard currently mobilized for Bosnia -- about one-third of the American force in the country -- she was given little choice about whether she would go or what her job would be. She switched to the Naval Reserve from active duty, and her husband is a Navy retiree. They live with their 17-year-old daughter in Norfolk, Va. ''As a family we are used to this,'' she said.

The Army's smaller size and new peacekeeping mission have caused what senior officers call a fundamental change in how the military views the forces at its disposal. It is no longer a case of drawing on active personnel first, and the Reserves and National Guard only in emergencies.

''Everyone is in the pool,'' said Brig. Gen. Pat O'Neal. ''They are all eligible to go. That's the change.'' As a deputy commander of Forces Command, General O'Neal is one of the top officers deciding which units are sent where.

The change is already being felt widely, and next year twice as many Guard and Reserve members are expected to be sent overseas.

Many officers and soldiers in Bosnia say that will only reveal the flaws of the new policy. They are already asking how often and for how long civilians will put up with being taken away from their families and careers and dispatched to hazardous, low-paying jobs in other countries.

''The Army's senior leadership has those same kinds of questions,'' said Brig. Gen. James R. Helmly, Deputy Chief of the Army Reserve, in a telephone interview from the Pentagon. ''They are having a lot of late nights trying to answer them.''

Members of the Reserves and the National Guard receive moderate pay and other benefits in return for active service that ordinarily amounts to one weekend a month and two weeks a year. They can be called on for much longer active duty by the President. Usually, the higher pay they receive when mobilized is considerably less than what they earn in their civilian jobs.

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Employers are barred from discriminating against employees called up for active service. But many reservists say the law is difficult to enforce, and they worry what will happen if they are to be mobilized more frequently.

One Reserve sergeant who spoke on condition of anonymity said, ''My boss told me straight out, 'If I can get along without you for a few months, I guess I can just plain get along without you.' ''

With the end of the cold war, the United States has not only reduced the size of its military but also increased the number of places it has sent troops overseas. In May the Army alone has 33,944 soldiers on temporary duty in 81 countries. Most are on on peacekeeping missions or training exercises.

At the same time, the kinds of duties that normally fell to Reserve forces -- like civil affairs, psychological operations and community building -- became more important in the military's new peacekeeping role. Of the roughly 200 American civil affairs officers in Bosnia, only one is in the regular Army. Reservists in Bosnia are working as doctors, truck drivers, firefighters and pilots, among other specialties.

''No one in this building saw something like Bosnia coming,'' said a senior Pentagon officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''But with the Guard and Reserve, we absorbed it and are doing all right. Well, we're not limping real badly. But I don't think we could easily handle another Bosnia or anything like it now and still be ready for a major conflict.''

To support the 8,300 Americans among the NATO-led forces in Bosnia, another 3,500 Americans are on duty in Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, France and Britain. Many are in the Reserves, under the control of individual armed services, or the National Guard, under the command of state governors until they are activated by the President.

When Company C of the Third Battalion, 116th Infantry, which is the National Guard unit based in Leesburg, Va., was called up, its members were stunned. Their unit is an infantry company, and they assumed the Army had enough infantry troops available without having to rely on the Guard. In any case, it became the first Guard combat unit to be sent overseas in 29 years.

''We are proud,'' said Capt. Mike Patterson, the company commander, who in civilian life is a parole officer. ''We can do the job. But my guys have jobs, kids and homes. This deployment comes at a big cost. When I was told we were going to Bosnia, I thought it was a joke.''

When they returned to Leesburg in April, they had been gone for eight months. Their main job was guarding an essential bridge across the Sava River in northern Bosnia. They say they are honored to be trusted enough to have been called, but during their mission, some marriages suffered, careers were blunted and family finances were crippled.

''I joined for extra money for college,'' said Sgt. Ovidio Perez, standing next to an anti-tank missile and an M-60 machine gun that help defend the bridge over the Sava. ''I thought there'd be a blizzard or a flood, some emergency at home, and we'd go help.''

Many members say that despite their patriotism, they cannot bear the financial burden.

A Defense Department insurance program into which people could pay monthly premiums and would receive up to $5,000 a month if they were mobilized has run out of money -- in large part because of a surge of claims by people sent to Bosnia.

The program owes about $40 million, much of that to people now on duty here. [In May, Congress authorized $47 million to pay all claims and shut the program.]

Many soldiers in Bosnia, active as well as Guard and Reserves, see the number of places they may be sent increasing and the interval between missions shrinking. Some are not convinced that senior commanders have given enough thought to the strain this has placed on personnel.

''What we see here is that the folks we replaced, the 10th Mountain Division, had already been to Somalia and Haiti, and the people relieving us, the First Armored Division, some of them spent almost a year in Bosnia in the first part of the mission,'' said a sergeant from Company C on the Sava River bridge. ''It's only going to get worse.''

Correction: June 4, 1998, Thursday A front-page article on May 25 about the United States' increasing use of National Guard troops in Bosnia misstated the uniqueness of the Guard's service overseas. While a combat unit of the Army National Guard sent to Bosnia was the first such unit deployed overseas in nearly three decades, combat units of the Air National Guard have served overseas in recent years.